Professor of Comparative Literature
College of Letters, Arts & Sciences
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0353
Office: Taper Hall of Humanities, Room 236
Ph.D. Comparative Literature at New York University
Women's Studies in contemporary art, literature, and culture; ecofeminism in the arts; surrealism; women and surrealism; and shamanism.
Professor Orenstein's first book, The Theater of the Marvelous: Surrealism and The Contemporary Stage, paved the way for her pioneering work on the women of surrealism. Her articles in this field have been published in both art and literary journals, frequently anthologized, and translated into many languages. More recently, she has written The Reflowering of the Goddess, a feminist analysis of the movement in the contemporary arts that reclaims the Goddess as a symbol of a paradigm shift and a change in our mythos and ethos. She is author of Multi-Cultural Celebrations: Betty La Duke Paintings 1972-1992 and co-editor of Reweaving The World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism. Orenstein's latest project is a memoir entitled Illuminating the Invisible: The Life and Times of a Feminist Scholar on a Spiritual Quest.